Malawi fake visa scam: Ghananian and Cameroonian held in Lilongwe

Malawi Immigration Department has arrested two foreigners suspected to have been processing fake visas.

The two, Daniel Bat of Ghana and Israel Jere Mitsumbe of Cameroon, who are said to be members of Lord’s Chosen Charismatic Revival Ministries, were based in the capital city Lilongwe.

Public Relations Officer for Immigration Department in the Centre, Ealack Banda said that during their investigations at a hotel where Daniel was lodging, the officers found a laptop that contained soft copies of different kinds of visas.

“We have arrested two foreigners one from Ghana and the other from Cameroon. The first one from Ghana is Daniel Bat who said he is a pastor of Lord’s Charismatic Revival Ministries,” said Banda.

“He came last year where he submitted two passports at the Chinese Embassy for visa application. The passports were for two Nigerians and one from Sierra Leon but the Chinese Embassy got suspicious with the Malawi visas in the submitted passports that had same serial number, were faint in colour and they did not have stamps of the issuing of the visas,” he said.

According to the department’s publicist, Bat came back on May 1, 2013 and at that time, the embassy had already notified the immigration office to go and check the visas that were inside the passports.

The officers from the immigration department went to the embassy where they managed to arrest Bat while Mitsumbe had already been arrested by the Area 3 police officers.

“We also found out that Mitsumbe had already collected money from someone whom he promised to do him three American passports. He is also a pastor of the same church as Bat,” he added.

Banda said through their interrogations for the two suspects, they found out that the two knew each other very well.

In a similar incident in February this year, the Malawi’s department of immigration disclosed that it had uncovered a visa processing syndicate that was enabling some foreigners to jet into the country as if they are legally acceptable.

The department’s officers at the country’s Kamuzu International Airport (KIA) were suspicious with the timing and visa letters issued to some Pakistanis following the first group of three Pakistan nationals arrived on 2nd February 2013 while another group of three arrived two days later pretending to be on a visit to relatives in Blantyre and Lilongwe respectively.